The other day I was listening to the radio in the car, and I heard something that startled me so much I actually had to pull over to get my head around it. The interviewee (didn’t catch who he was or where he hailed from, sorry) was saying that if you have:
a) a car
b) money in the bank
c) a little extra in your wallet/purse
you’re in the top eight percent of the world’s wealthy.
Eight percent! Now I’m aware that my life is pretty comfortable from a global perspective and I’ve heard statistics on poverty before, but something about that one brought me up short. Maybe because those are things that I’d class as essentials, rather than extras. And I never would have guessed that I’m better off than 92% of the rest of the world. I don’t know about you, but while I’m fairly definite with my kids about the difference between “needs” vs “wants”, I’m not always so good at distinguishing it for myself! (Particularly when the end-of-financial-year-sales kick in…)
Frankly, it inspired a “Pollyanna / count your blessings” moment. Which brings us to Layout Seventeen:
Happily, I re-discovered my album-for-me a week or two ago. (Unpacking those last few boxes takes a while, huh?) This is where all my contemplative / experimental / don’t fit anywhere else layouts go. I’m hesitant to call it an art journal because so far it’s really just scrapping, but it pretty much fulfils that role. Good fun – and satisfying.
On a final note, I need some advice. I finally worked out how to do a blog background / header (hurrah for on-line tutorials!), but do you think I could find how to get rid of the old background? I could not. So if any of you who are more technically-minded than me – which appears to be anyone over the age of oh, say, four – could help me out, it would be very much appreciated!
Happy scrapping!
